Adapting Raven Queen Patron as a Cleric Domain?

[bluebadger]

There are two main options for death-themed Clerics to choose from: the Grave and Death Domains. But, both of them have issues and I'm just not a huge fan of either. So, I'd like to create a third option, a sort of Death Domain 2.0.

A Death Cleric is a melee warrior (Dex-only, though? No scythes?) that is really only amazing at murdering things to death with Necrotic damage. That's their gig: murder. They're not actually that great at doing anything other than causing death.

Grave Clerics are a little better, with their combination of damage-dealing and damage-prevention abilities, but their powers lack internal synergy and have a rather scattered focus.

I've been browsing through the Unearthed Arcana, and came across the Raven Queen Patron for the Warlock Class. Some further research suggested that, using a custom Invocation to grant access to Animate Dead, a Raven Queen Warlock could even be a potential necromancer class. Awesome! But... not a Cleric.

Could parts of the Raven Queen Patron be adapted into a more thematically unified death-themed Domain? The Warlock Bonus Spells and Cleric Domain Spells are basically the same mechanic, so that's easy to translate over. Both Patrons and Domains offer a bonus at level 1 and level 6, so that's fairly simple. The level 1 and 6 Raven Queen Patron abilities are pretty awesome, but not specifically "death" themed. Things get complex after that, though.

Channel Divinity hasn't got a Warlock analog, but it could be cribbed from either Death or Grave. Both of those are just damage bonuses, which are kinda boring, but I don't currently have any other ideas for death-themes Channels.

The real issue is that Patrons grant powers at level 10 and level 17, while Domains grant powers at level 8 and 14. How can the Patron powers be tweaked to make them suitable for the earlier-arriving Domain slots?

The level 10 Raven Queen ability (immunity to Frightened, resistance to Necrotic dmg, and advantage on death saving throws) is pretty amazing, but probably not appropriate to receive at level 8, when a Domain should grant the 3rd power.

The level 17 Raven Queen ability is actually kinda underwhelming, since it only grants the Warlock access to a single Wizard spell (Finger of Death) once per long rest. Clerics can already cast level 7 spells by 14th level (when they should be getting their 4th domain power), and the level 14 Grave Cleric ability is pretty awesome... so I'm thinking this isn't actually an issue at all.

I'd appreciate some thoughts on combining the best elements of Grave, Death and Raven Queen together to make a more thematically unified and necromancy-friendly Death Domain for Clerics!

[Quoxis]

I'm afb, but i think the raven queen isn't really a deity of the (un)dead but of death itself, so death domain's necrotic attacks do make sense imo;
If you plan necromancy in the sense of raising corpses to fight, i'd say include the tactic clerics have been invented for - healing.
A channel divinity could be an area effect of healing exclusively for undead allies (as most if not all healing spells don't apply to those). Maybe style it after the aura stuff paladins get, i don't know, but i think being able to procedurally heal your zombies could make you at least as good as necromancer wizards.

[Saiga]

The Raven Queen actively hates the undead, if anything a homebrewed Raven Queen domain should move away from the undead-focused abilities. Regular Death Domain is close enough as long as you ignore/replace the Animate Dead domain spell.

(Raven Queen patron also has Finger of Death, which is a flavour disconnect, but I'm hoping the published version addresses that).

[Millstone85]

The Raven Queen actively hates the undead, if anything a homebrewed Raven Queen domain should move away from the undead-focused abilities. Regular Death Domain is close enough as long as you ignore/replace the Animate Dead domain spell.

(Raven Queen patron also has Finger of Death, which is a flavour disconnect, but I'm hoping the published version addresses that).I have seen a fellow player push this to its logical extreme and have his cleric of Kelemvor refuse to use any spell from the school of necromancy or dealing necrotic damage, because of the connection to undeath.

That's just no fun, and the Raven Queen's trusted servants should totally fight the undead with undead of their own.

Also, back in 4e, she was the deity most likely to send a soul back as a revenant for some grand purpose.

[GPS]

I have seen a fellow player push this to its logical extreme and have his cleric of Kelemvor refuse to use any spell from the school of necromancy or dealing necrotic damage, because of the connection to undeath.

That's just no fun, and the Raven Queen's trusted servants should totally fight the undead with undead of their own.

Also, back in 4e, she was the deity most likely to send a soul back as a revenant for some grand purpose.
I feel a balance can be struck somewhere in between using the UA Grave cleric. An alternative to necromancy while still being able to play a death flavored cleric. They still get one spell like animate/create undead, but other than that they're clearly not meant to be necromancers.

[bluebadger]

From what I understand, and I've only read a tiny bit about the Raven Queen, she doesn't really take issue with non-sentient undead because they haven't got souls. Their souls passed on; only their bodies remain, even if they are moving around. So a necromancer can do as they please with the corpses of the dead, as long as the souls are ferried along.

My Cleric is a Dwarf who honors the ancestor spirits, but believes that the ancestors owe it to their community to continue helping out even after death. So he calls on their for knowledge, help in battle, and yeah, would even make use of their bodies if doing so helped the living. Their souls are at rest, after all. The bodies are just flesh (and bones). So in that sense, I don't see a conflict between the Raven Queen's position as a psychopomp and her Clerics making use of undead minions, as long as they're not sentient undead minions.

@Quoxis: I can definitely see an alternate Channel Divinity that's based on the Pathfinder Channel Negative Energy ability. Hmm. I'll have to look into that! Thanks.

[NecroDancer]

Check out the Cleric UA with the grave domain

[Arenabait]

He... He did... He specifically said he did in the post...

[NecroDancer]

my bad

You could always go knowledge domain to play up her "fate" aspect

[bluebadger]

True, yes, there are alternative Domains that could be used for the Raven Queen.

But my goal is to create a Death-themed Domain that is less about getting damage bonuses and more about death as a concept. I generally prefer new powers to extra Necrotic damage. The Death Domain itself focuses very heavily on Necrotic damage. Grave is inconsistent. But I think there are elements of both that can be used to help convert the Raven Queen Patron powers of the Warlock Class into a Cleric Domain. So that's what I'm looking at doing.

What I'm thinking of right now is something along these lines:

Raven Domain

Domain Spells
1st Level: False Life, Sanctuary
3rd Level: Silence, Spiritual Weapon
5th Level: Feign Death, Speak with Dead
7th Level: Ice Storm, Death Ward
9th Level: Cloudkill, Cone of Cold

Domain Benefits
Level 1: Gain Heavy Armor and Martial Weapon Proficiency
Level 1: Sentinel Raven – same as Warlock Patron Boon
Level 2: Channel Divinity – ???
Level 6: Soul of the Raven – same as Warlock Patron Boon
Level 10*: Raven's Shield – same as Warlock Patron Boon
Level 17: Keeper of Souls – same as Grave Domain Benefit

Still pondering the Channel Divinity. Grave might work better than Death. Especially if it can be delivered via your Raven!

There's also still the issue of the level 8/10 Domain benefit. Domains give that perk at 8, but Patrons at 10. So the Raven's Shield bonus is likely overpowered for level 8, but it fits perfectly with the idea of a servant of death. Would it be crazy to shift the Domain benefit up to 10?

[NecroDancer]

All the level 8 abilities are either a boast to melee damage or spell casting damage. You could change the ability but it would break the pattern with the other clerics.

Divine Strike
At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy.

Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 <insert type here> damage to the target.

When you reach 14th level the extra damage increases to 2d8.

The damage would probably be cold.

If you wanted to keep the Raven Sheild ability you could include it as a channel divinity (only slightly weaker).

[MrStabby]

I can flesh out a better response later but just to note that an ability coming at a higher level does not mean it is better.

For example a level 19 ASI is just as good as a V.human gets at first level. Or evasion abilities coming at different levels for different classes, rogue and bard expertise coming at different levels. In fact any multiclass discussion about underwhelming capstones and how better abilities can be found in the first couple of levels of another class suggests that it is quite frequent that the abilities from early levels are better than later level abilities. Yes, it is worth being extra careful about these, especially when they allow new things rather than improvements but I wouldn't immediately rule out just providing the same abilities in the same order. Once I actually read the abilities I might have a different view though! Even a powerful ability isn't wrong - if the class progression is a little underwhelming at a particular point then allowing a bigger ability jump by giving a class feature a couple of levels earlier than expected might just bring the class on-track.